Explosion 1895 -- Sturgis, KY
MIDNIGHT EXPLOSION IN THE SLOPE AT STURGIS
Not One Man of the Five Escapes to Tell the Tale
Four Widows and Seventeen Children Left Unprovided For
Cause of the Accident
DEKOVEN, Ky. Jan 23
an explosion in a coal mine caused by the igniting of gas occurred south of
here, near Sturgis, at 12 o'clock last night, and of the five men who were
working in the slope not one is left to tell the story of the awful death
under ground.
About midnight last night a tremendous shock, carrying with it a muffled
roar, awoke everybody in the neighborhood, and a party of citizens rushed
in the direction of the sound.
The debris about the old Tate slope from which an opening was being driven
into the Sturgis shaaft, soon pointed out the nature and spot of the
disaster. Lights were procued and a relief party started in to the hole of
death to rescue if possible, the unhappy occupants. Having got through the
mass of coal, slate, wrecked cars, etc. left by the explosion, the relief
crew came upon the bodies of two dead mules, which were used in the mines,
and their worst fears were about to be realized. Loud shouts into the dark
pit received no reply, and the stillness of death reigned in the rooms
whence a foul odor of gas and powder came.
At the face of the entry, where a wall of coal of about one hundred yards
divided them from the men who were working toward them from the shaft, the
five miners of the slope side were found in various position, all dead and
nearly all badly burned. The eyeballs of several protruded from their
sockets, and the bodies presented a sickening scene.
The dead men are as follows: JAMES COFFEE, aged twenty one married.
WILLIAM WALTON, aged fifty, large family.
ROBERT HALL, aged forty large family.
AL HALL, aged twenty unmarried.
MILES FITZSIMMONS aged forty five, large family.
The explosion was so great that it cracked the roof of the mine near the
entrance.
When the charred remains of the victims were brought out and recognized by
their familes their cries and lamentation were heartrending.
Not a few miners think the explosion was caused by dust, but the general
opinion is that the gas which accumulated in the rooms while the mines were
abandoned was rushed forward by the falling of heavy slate into the main
opening and there ignited by the lamps of the miners.
Three kegs of powder, one of which was opened were found in the mine, the
two unopened kegs being exploded and the one exposed being untouched.
The mines have been working day and night using a double force, the object
being to drive north and south from the shaft and the later slope thus
joining the mines together.
Submitted by: Betty Sellers
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